The Lady Buffs basketball team is starting out the spring semester 15-2, with an average of 89 points per game. This past weekend was a high for the Lady Buffs as they won games against Texas A&M University-Commerce and Texas Woman’s University. They will battle rival Eastern New Mexico University on Saturday, Jan. 31.
“For Eastern, it’s a rivalry thing, so we know they’re going to play their hardest and give it their all, so we have to be ready to execute a game plan and get ready to go in there and take care of business,” Sasha Watson, sophomore guard for the Lady Buffs, said.
To prepare for the game against the Zias of ENMU, the Lady Buffs have to step up their defense to lessen the amount of shots taken against them.
“[Defense] is good,” head coach Mark Kellogg said. “When you score, I think it sugar coats your defense a little, makes you think you are defending a little better than you are. We probably gave up a few too many points and let teams shoot at a little high of a percentage against us. We rely on the offensive side a little too much, and we need to work on getting better defensively.”
As a team, defense is an area in which improvement is needed in terms of putting stops together and keeping leads, and creating bigger leads to put teams away is needed, Watson said.
“Defense determines offense, and the harder and better you play on defense, the better your offense,” Watson said.
Watson is aggressive as a player, with 51 steals on the season, 71 assists, 55 total rebounds and 223 points on the season. Equally as aggressive is Chontiquah White, who has 293 points on the season. White has 142 total rebounds, 22 assists and 11 steals. Watson has forced 58 turnovers, and White has forced 41, respectively.
“Going into the game [against Commerce], we knew they were going to throw everything at us, and they played a zone for the most part to slow us down,” Watson said, “so our game plan was to attack the gaps and break the zone down. We excelled at learning to stay calm and play our game against a team that wants to play quick and spastic.”
Lady Buffs fan Epiphany Sharp, senior Broadcast Journalism major, said she thought the team came together and dominated this past weekend.
The Lady Buffs are set to face off with the Zias on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. in Portales, NM.
“The Lady Buffs are actually really great for a girls team, and watching them generally deems entertaining,” Sharp said. “I believe with the right mindset going in, the [Lady] Buffs will have another win.”
